This document is the first printed version of the American Declaration of Independence. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution urging Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, to declare independence from Great Britain. Four days later, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were appointed as a committee to draft a declaration of independence. The committee’s draft was read in Congress on June 28. On July 4, Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, containing a list of grievances against the British ...

This booklet, issued by the Ministry of Information of the Republic of the Congo, is a collection of speeches given by high-ranking Congolese and French politicians at a special session of the Congolese National Assembly on August 14-15, 1960, convened to mark the country’s independence from France, which took effect on August 15, 1960. Included are speeches by the first president of the Republic of the Congo, Fulbert Youlou (1917-72), a speech by André Malraux, and a message from French President Charles de Gaulle read by Malraux. Youlou was ...

This pamphlet contains the text of the speech given by Nigerian independence leader Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904-96) on the day he became the first indigenous governor-general of Nigeria and the first Nigerian to be named to the Privy Council of Queen Elizabeth II. Nigeria became an independent state within the British Commonwealth on October 1, 1960. In the speech, Azikiwe discusses the changed role of the governor-general as a result of independence and, as in many of his speeches and writings from the period, the importance of the rule of law ...

This speech to the people of Senegal by Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906-2001) was delivered the day after his election as the first president of the newly independent republic. Senghor was born in what was then French West Africa. He was sent at a young age to a Catholic mission school, where he embraced French and European culture, but also felt the loss of his mother tongue and the pain of being torn from his African roots. He won a scholarship to pursue literary studies in France, beginning in 1928. In ...

Félix Houphouët-Boigny (1905-93) was the first president of Côte d’Ivoire. He gave this speech shortly before a September 1958 referendum on the future of French West Africa. Houphouët-Boigny outlined the country's path to independence, but also called for the preservation of strong ties with France, within a new French Community. Côte d’Ivoire became a de facto French protectorate under a series of treaties concluded in 1843-44, and a French colony in 1893. From 1904 to 1958, Côte d’Ivoire was part of the federation of French West ...

This pamphlet recaptures the main events of the first year of Ghana’s history as an independent country. It features texts on politics by the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, a political year in review, and greetings from foreign leaders. Also included are articles on the arts, sports, education, science, and agriculture of the country, as well as stories about Ghana’s role in the world and its plans for the future. Moses Danquah, a long-time columnist for the Daily Graphic and one of Ghana’s most ...

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, in which the American colonies set forth a list of grievances against the British Crown and declared that they were breaking from British rule to form free and independent states. On July 19, 1776, Congress resolved that the Declaration passed on the 4th be "fairly engrossed on parchment with the title and stile [sic]: 'The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America'...and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress ...

John Dunlap, official printer to the Continental Congress, produced the first printed versions of the American Declaration of Independence in his Philadelphia shop on the night of July 4, 1776. After the Declaration had been adopted by the Congress earlier that day, a committee took the manuscript document, possibly Thomas Jefferson's "fair copy" of his rough draft, to Dunlap for printing. On the morning of July 5, copies were dispatched by members of Congress to various assemblies, conventions, and committees of safety as well as to the commanders of ...

This 1945 recruiting poster by the Dutch artist Nico Broekman shows a Japanese soldier being booted from the island of Bali, and the caption, “Get Out! The Indies Must Be Liberated.” During World War II, Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies in early 1942. After the surrender, a large number of Dutch submarines and some aircraft escaped to Australia and continued to fight as part of Australian units. In the course of the war, Indonesian nationalists supported by the Japanese took over parts of the country. Allied troops invaded Borneo ...

Agustin de Iturbide was a Royalist officer in the Mexican War of Independence who fought the insurgent leader Vicente Guerrero. Failing to defeat the insurgency, Iturbide adopted the cause of independence and allied with Guerrero (an event known as the "Embrace of Acatempan"), thereby making it possible to end the war and secure independence from Spain. On February 24, 1821, Iturbide proclaimed the Plan of Iguala (named for a city in the present state of Guerrero, in the south of the country), and with it declared the independence of the ...

This manuscript, tinged with blood and found between the sash and shirt of Agustín de Iturbide after his execution by firing squad on July 19, 1824, is an emotional defense of Iturbide’s public career. A former Royalist officer who joined the Mexican struggle for independence, Itrubide was crowned emperor of Mexico on May 21, 1822, under the name Agustín I. However, he was unable to achieve peace and abdicated on March 19, 1823, and went into exile. Without knowing that he had been declared a traitor and an outlaw ...

This four-part report was prepared in 1959 by a constitutional committee established by Sir Frederick Crawford, Governor of Uganda, as the then-protectorate of Uganda prepared for independence from Great Britain. The committee was chaired by John Wild, and included two other Europeans, two Asians, and ten Africans. It was “to consider, and to recommend to the Governor, the form of direct elections on a common roll for the representative members of the Legislative Council to be introduced in 1961, the number of seats to be filled under the above system ...

This eight-page manifesto, issued by an outlawed Cameroonian political party, the Union des Populations du Cameroun (Union of the Peoples of Cameroon [UPC]), outlines the party's position vis-à-vis the independence of Cameroon. The manifesto was written in December 1959 and was signed by the party’s president, Félix-Roland Moumié. Cameroon is the only African country that, in the course of its history, was ruled by three different European colonial powers: Britain, France, and Germany. It became a German colony in 1884. After World War I, a League of Nations ...

This booklet, published in Paris in March 1977, contains text excerpted from a declaration, signed by Hassan Gouled Aptidon (1916-2006), president of Djibouti’s leading political movement, the Ligue populaire africaine pour l'Indépendance (Popular African League for Independence). The declaration was aimed at the people of Djibouti on the eve of the historic referendum for independence from France, which took place in May 1977. Hassan Gouled Aptidon was one of Djibouti’s chief negotiators for independence during roundtable talks in Paris in 1977. He became the country’s first ...

This 1966 souvenir program celebrates the declaration of Malawi as a republic. Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) became an independent member of the British Commonwealth on July 6, 1964, and adopted a republican constitution two years later. The move to the republican form of government was primarily the work of Hastings Kamuzu Banda (1896?-1997), who served as prime minister in 1964-66 and as the country’s first president from 1966 until 1994. Banda was trained as a doctor in the United States and the United Kingdom and practiced medicine in London ...

The Latvian Central Council was created on March 13, 1943, by representatives of Latvia’s largest prewar political parties. Latvia had gained its independence from Russia at the end of World War I, but in June 1940 the country was occupied by the Red Army and in August 1940 it was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union. In June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and by July of that year it had overrun Latvia and incorporated the country into Germany’s eastern empire. Latvians resisted both Soviet and ...

Fray Servando Teresa de Mier was born in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico in 1763. He entered the Dominican order at age 16, studied philosophy and theology, and obtained a doctorate at age 27. Sentenced to exile in Spain after a sermon deemed provocative, Mier was imprisoned and escaped several times. He worked with Simón Rodríguez, a future mentor to Simón Bolívar, in France where he was later involved in hostilities against Napoleon. Historia de la Revolución de Nueva España (History of the revolution in New Spain), published in London in ...